SECOND GALLERY OF LITERARY PORTRAITS. JOHN MILTON. PERHAPS some may be astonished at the subject selected-John Milton. Can anything new, that is true—or true, that is new, be said on such a theme? Have not the ages been gazing upon this "mighty orb of song as at the sun? and have not almost all its gifted admirers uttered each his glowing panegyric, till now they seem to be ranged like planetary bodies round his central blaze? What more can be said or sung? Is it not impossible to add to, however easy to diminish, our sense of his greatness? Is not the ambition rash and presumptuous which seeks to approach the subject anew? Surely the language of apology, at least, is the fit preface to such a deed of daring. No apology, however, do we intend to make. We hold that every one who has been delighted, benefited, or elevated by a great author, may claim the privilege of gratitude, to tell the world that, and how, he has. We hold, too, that the proof of the true greatness of a man lies in this, that every new encomiast, if in any measure qualified for the task, is sure to find in him some new proof that the praises of all time have not been wasted or exaggerated. Who that reads or thinks at all has not frequent occasions to pass by the cairn which a thankful word has reared to Milton's memory ? and who can, at one time or other, resist the impulse to cast on it another stone, however rough B and small that stone may be? propose. Such is all we at present Every man is in some degree the mirror of his times. A man's times stand over him, as the sun above the earth, compelling an image from the dewdrop, as well as from the great deep. The difference is, that while the small man is a small, the great man is a broad and full, reflection of his day. But the effect of the times may be seen in the baby's bauble and cart, as well as in the style of the painter's pencil and the poet's song. The converse is equally true. A man's times are reflective of the man, as well as a man of the times. Every man acts on, as well as is acted on by, every other man. The cry of the child who falls in yonder gutter as really affects the progress of society as the roar of the French Revolution. There is a perpetual process going on of action and reaction, between each on the one side, and all on the other. The characteristic of the great man is, that his reaction on his age is more than equal to its action upon him. No man is wholly a creator, nor wholly a creature of his age. The Milton or the Shakspere is more the creator than he is the creature. Some men pass through the atmosphere of their time as meteors through the air, or comets through the heavens— leaving as little impression, and having with it a connection equally slight; while others interpenetrate it so entirely that the age becomes almost identified with them. Milton was intensely the man of his time; and, although he shot far before it, it was simply because he more fully felt and understood what its tendencies really were; he spread his sails in its breath, as in a favourable gale, which propelled him far beyond the point where the impulse was at first given. A glance at the times of Milton would require to be a profound and comprehensive one; for the times that bore such a product must have been extraordinary. One feature, perhaps the chief, in them was this: Milton's age was an age attempting, with sincere, strong, though baffled endeavour, to be earnest, holy, and heroic. The Church had, in the previous age, been partially and nominally reformed; but it had failed in accomplishing its own full deliverance, or the full deliverance of the world. It had shaken off the nightmare of popery, but had settled itself down into a sleep, more composed, less disturbed, but as deadly. Is the Reformation, thought the high hearts which then gave forth their thunder throbs in England, to turn out a mere sham? Has all that bloody seed of martyrdom been sown in vain? Whether is worse, after all, the incubus of superstition, or the sleep of death? We have got rid of the Pope, indeed, but not of the world, or the devil, or the flesh; we must, therefore, repair our repairs-amend our amendments-reform our Reformation—and try, in this way, to get religion to come down, as a practical living power, into the hearts and lives of Englishmen. We must squeeze our old folios into new facts-we must see the dead blood of the martyrs turned into living trees of righteousness we must have character as well as controversies—life, life at all hazards, we must have, even though it be through the destruction of ceremonies, the damage of surplices, the dismissal of bishops-ay, or the death of kings. Such was the spirit of that age. We speak of its real onward tendency the direction of the main stream. We stay not to count the numerous little obstinate opposing eddies that were taking chips and straws-Lauds and Clarendonsbackwards; thus, and no otherwise, ran the master current of the brain, the heart, and the hand of that magnificent era. Are we not standing near the brink of another period, in some points very similar to that of English Puritanism? Is not our age getting tired of names, words, pretensions ; and anxious for things, deeds, realities? It cares nothing now for such terms as Christendom-Reformed Churches Glorious Constitution of 1688. It wants a Christendom where the character of Christ-like that of Hamlet is not omitted by special desire: it wants re-reformed churches, and a glorious constitution, that will do a little more to feed, clothe, and educate those who sit under its shadow, and have long talked of, without tasting, its blessed fruits. It wants in short, those big, beautiful words -Liberty, Religion, Free Government, Church and State, taken down from our flags, transparencies, and triumphal arches, and introduced into our homes, hearths, and hearts. And, although we have now no Cromwell and no Milton, yet, thank God, we have thousands of gallant hearts, and gifted spirits, and eloquent tongues, who have vowed loud and deep, in all the languages of Europe, that falsehoods. and deceptions, of all sorts and sizes, of all ages, statures, and complexions, shall come to a close. To Milton's time we may apply the words of inspiration "The children are brought to the birth, but there is not strength to bring forth." The great purpose of the age was formed, begun, but left unfinished-nay, drowned in slavery and blood. How mortifying to a spirit such as his! It was as if Moses had been taken up to Pisgah, but had been struck dead before he saw the land of milk and honey. So Milton had laboured, and climbed to the steep summit, whence he expected a new world of liberty and truth to expand before him, but found instead a wilder chaos and a fouler hell than before. But dare we pity him, and need we pity ourselves? But for Milton's disappointment, and disgust with the evil days and evil tongues on which he latterly fell, he would not have retired into the solitude of his own soul; and had he not so retired, the world would have wanted its greatest poem-the "Paradise Lost." That was the real fruit of the Puritanic contest-of all its tears, and all its blood: and let those who are still enjoying a result so rich, in gratitude declare "how that red rain did make the harvest grow." No life of Milton, worthy of the name, has hitherto been written. Fenton's sketch is an elegant trifle. Johnson's is, in parts, a heavy invective |